From their ballots under the 14th Amendment, so he gets to stay on the ballot in colorado, where the primary is tomorrow, maine, and illinois cant kick him off either. This decision is significant because the Supreme Court has never had to rule before on whether or not states have the power to disqualify a candidate, even an insurrectionist. This outcome is not necessarily surprising. The moment most legal experts heard the Oral Arguments and, specifically the back and forth with the justices, most of them predicted the court wouldnt take the step of barring the republican front runner from the ballot, that they would find a way out, and they did. Now, would a different outcome have sent a stronger message that you cannot foment an insurrection and be allowed to run for federal office . Yes, it would have. Would it be better for the prospects of president bidens reelection if donald trump got kicked off the ballot given the fact that he attempted to overturn the last election . Yes, the answer there is obviously yes. The biden team was never banking on trump getting booted. I actually asked bidens Deputy Campaign manager quinton folks about the ruling earlier today. This is what he said. We dont really care. It has not been the way that we have been planning to beat donald trump. Our focus since day one of launching this campaign has been to defeat donald trump at the ballot box. Everything we have done since the president announced back in april that he was running for reelection is to build an infrastructure and apparatus to do so. This is what they, like many of us, expected because of watching those Oral Arguments and talking to smart legal experts. What was not expected today was that the majority of the court went further than simply settling whether a state lead colorado can take this action. They said power is reserved exclusively for congress. Quote, the constitution makes Congress Rather than the states responsible for enforcing Section Three against federal officeholders and candidates. By saying congress is the Sole Authority here, yes, it means that red states will not be able to just kick democrats off the ballot willynilly and blue states wont be able to kick republicans off, you would think, but it also means that if we have one body of congress that is the same body as the candidate in question, like we do right now, it seems hard to imagine a scenario where they are going to be barred from the ballot even if they foment an insurrection. Thats a lot of power for an already dysfunctional branch of government. At the end of the day, what was most interesting to me, and i will talk to a lot of legal experts on the show, is what the court did not do. Donald trump seems to think this was a well crafted decision, his words, not mine. He gave them during a strange midday set of remarks where he bragged about the fact that he won the legal argument this time. Here is the thing the court did not clear him of engaging in an insurrection. Remember, both the Colorado District Court and colorado Supreme Court ruled trump did, in fact, engage in insurrection. The state court said his, quote, actions constituted overt, voluntary, and direct participation in the insurrection. A judge in illinois and the Secretary Of State in maine determined at the same thing. Today, by declining to address that issue at all, the Supreme Court let that stand. They could have said otherwise, but they did not. Its not like trump didnt ask them to. Remember, he argued at length that he did not engage in an insurrection, that it was not an insurrection at all, but the court said nothing about that. By saying nothing, i think they said a whole lot. Yes, Donald Trumps name may be on the ballot in colorado and illinois and maine, but no, that name was not cleared of an insurrection today. Its important to remember that. I spent all day wondering what sharon ivel thinks about all of this. She never holds back. She has lots of brilliant thoughts. Shes the former president of the naacp Legal Defense fund. Shes now the Vernon Jordan distinguished professor and civil rights at howard law school. You have said, weve talked about this case before. You have said, quote, Section Three was enacted for such a time as this and for such a figure as president trump. You have reflected on history, which is so powerful. What was your reaction to the Court Decision today . Well, i was not surprised, jim, at the outcome, at the judgment that we had talked about this before as you said at the top of the hour. The court would be looking for an off ramp. I was extremely disappointed in the oral argument, in part because many of the justices seemed unprepared. This was a case in which there were many, many amicus briefs that were filed. There were complicated arguments. This was a case in which we do not have a lot to go on in terms of president because, fortunately, until 2020, we have not experienced a federal insurrection. I expected that the court was going to seek an off ramp. I thought the offramp would be kind of what it was, which is that they werent going to allow one state to remove trump from the ballot. I think what is disturbing is the overreach and im going to have to disagree with you a little bit. I hesitate to do so. We are in sync with the green. Please you are a legal expert. I will come your disagreement. Please i even disagree with other legal experts on this. I am not at all encouraged by the fact that the court didnt Say Something about whether or not trump engaged in insurrection. It was very clear from the argument that they had no intention of touching it. They had no intention of reviewing the factual premise of the colorado Supreme Courts decision and they seemed even disdainful of involving themselves in the stickiness of the actual factual question as to whether or not trump had actually participated in an insurrection, but what they do is that they overreached. Even though this was a unanimous judgment, i think the takeaway from this opinion today is the brawl that is clearly happening on the Supreme Court. We have three justices, justice sotomayor, justice kagan, and justice jackson, who seemed to be concurring, but it was a pretty harsh concurrence. This is a case, they said, that cried out for judicial restraint. They used their concurrence to talk about the failure of this court to exercise restraint. Jim, the court went beyond what they needed to do not only in terms of president trump, but remember that they also talked about the need for congress to pass legislation. They described precisely what the congressional action has to be. They described the legislation itself. It has to be tailored to Section Three. I think this really outraged the three justices who wrote that concurrence. This was not a question that had been factually developed or even illegally developed in this case. It wasnt that issue in this case. They reached out to do it. I think its shocking and important for the three concurring justices to say that they did it in order to insulate, they said, this court and the petitioner, that is president trump, from future controversy. They also said, the three concurring justices, that the decision today insulates all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office. That is important, jen, because you know there were two ten Members Of Congress. One was a representative elect, Marjorie Taylor greene, who met with trump on december 10th. Some of us have kept a running list of Members Of Congress who were involved or believed to have been involved in the plans to overturn the election. Trump is not the only fish in this ocean. The Supreme Court seemed to go further afield not only to protect trump into the future but also to protect others. Of course, there is this concurrence from amy coney barrett, the other conservative on the court, who writes a kind of plaintiff very short concurring opinion which demonstrates what she clearly had hoped for was that this court would be unanimous, that the five members would restrain themselves from going further than the three concurring justices wanted to and that they could have spoken with one voice in a way that, as she would describe it, will bring the temperature down. Its clear to me that from her concurrence she was disappointed that the five, other five conservative justices, the five male conservative justices, were somehow unable to exercise the restraint that might have resulted in a true unanimous judgment and opinion in this case. I think this is very revealing to us about what is going on on that court. I think when the historical record is written, when seats are added to the Supreme Court as they invariably will be, this will be part of the record of what was happening and what even justices on the court were prepared to say is the overreach of the conservatives on this court. This is a decision that we expected as it relates to mr. Trump. It is overreach is disturbing as it relates to other insurrectionists and as it relates to the court encroaching on what they believe Congress Must do, but its also very revealing about what is going on on this Supreme Court. Its very contentious. When you look at how revealing this is, and please disagree with me anytime, i welcome your viewpoints and your brilliance. When you look at that, because we are all awaiting this immunity case, they are not going to start Hearing Arguments until april. How do you assess or read this ruling today in terms of how they might approach cases related to trump moving forward . We i am actually this is why im spending so much time parsing the words of the concurring justices because i think they are speaking in moores code to us. I think they are telling us something. They are telling us something that is very disturbing, which is that i, mean when they say it is an attempt to insulate all alleged insurrectionists, thats a pretty loaded thing for fellow justices to say on the court and that the court attempts to insulate itself and the petitioner from a further controversy. I think this idea of reading the tea leaves as though there is any chance that this court is going to rule in a way that does not allow mr. Trump to go forward, even the immunity case, they obviously could have decided that that case on an expedited basis as they were asked to do by jack smith. They didnt do so. They could have left intact the court of appeals decision. They didnt do so. They have created a schedule that i think is going to make things very, very difficult. I think the idea that the Supreme Court is going to be some form of salvation here is not a sound one. We dont have any reason to believe that. I do think that we should be independently concerned as a matter of democracy about what is breaking down on the United StatesSupreme Court and that their actions would be cast into this way by their three colleagues who were united in that assessment of what is going on and joined not in how far that concurrence went, but joined in the disappointment and dissatisfaction by amy coney barrett, who also clearly would have preferred that the court not engage in this kind of overreach which would set off this kind of fracture. That means that she knows that there are legitimacy issues as well as americans view what the court is doing. For me, i think thats the biggest take away from this decision today and i think its independently alarming and we should be paying attention to that as well. Always read the dissent. That is my shorthand summary. Always watch what the court is doing. Its a concurrence its a concurrence in this case, so you got to read it all. You gotta read it all. Thank you, Sherrilyn Ifill. I always appreciate having you on a talking to and hearing your brilliance. Thank you for joining me this evening. Coming up, the Supreme Court shows they can move quickly like Sherrilyn Ifill was just referencing, when they want to. Why are they dragging their feet . Im going to ask conservative attorney George Conway who actually says the delay of the d. C. Trial could be bad news for donald trump. Were coming back in 60 seconds. It sure does seem like the Supreme Court can move very quickly when they want to help donald trump. It also seems like they can move very slowly when they want to help donald trump. Consider this trump asked the Supreme Court to take up the colorado ballot case on january 3rd. Today, just 61 days later, he got a ruling and it was the ruling he wanted. Compare that with the court cace in deciding trumps claim of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution way back in mid december when we were just talking about this with Sherrilyn Ifill. Special counsel jack smith asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on the Immunity Claim in head of Appeals Court ruling, they refused. The Appeals Court than ruled, unanimously rejecting trumps claim of immunity. Last, week the Supreme Court said, you know what . We do want to weigh in after all. They scheduled a hearing for the week of april 22nd. Thats seven weeks from now. Thats four months after jack smith first asked them to take the case, four months to get a hearing on the Immunity Claim justice compared to over six days to get to todays ruling which keeps trump on the ballot. Joining me now is conservative attorney George Conway. Hes a contributor to the atlantic and cohost of the podcast George Conway explains it all. I want to dig into all of that. A lot of us cant figure that out, the timing of the Supreme Court. We were just talking about the ruling today. You tweeted today, it doesnt even profess to be interpreting the text. It doesnt you know, professor eiffel said that there was a lot of overreach in the Majority Opinion. I think the problem here is that all nine justices under reached. They simply decided that they were not going to apply the constitution the way you normally apply it, which is you read the text and you try to figure out what it means in the context of history and you apply it. The plain text of the constitution from here says that donald trump is disqualified. So, you know, that was the real problem with todays decision. I dont think that i dont make much of the concurring opinions criticism of the majority for having gone too far. At the end of the day, i dont see, i cant see where in the Majority Opinion it does say that states cant enforce Section Three of the 14th Amendment against federal office holders. The only difference i can see between that holding and what the four concurring justices, the four women, interestingly, said is that they probably would have restricted it to the president and just the president. Again, there is just no basis, no textural basis, no historical basis. For them not to apply it . Not to apply it the only argument that is ever made in any of the opinions as to why you would restrict states from applying the 14th Amendment, the plain text of the 14th Amendment, the 14th Amendment which gives also of other provisions that apply regardless of whether Congress Says whatever congress, including the protection clause which prohibits race discrimination, the fact of the matter is that there is no basis to single out Section Three as being different from these other provisions. They are just making it up. All the justices were making it up. Why, though . Why . Youve studied this court for so long. Because they were terrified. Of, what trump, the reaction . The reaction i think that is clear from justice barretts incurring opinion. She says all of this stuff. She says the quiet part out loud. This is not the time to amplify disagreement with the stridency. The court has settled a politicallycharged case in the volatile season of a president ial election, particularly in these circumstances. Writing of the court should turn National Temperature down, not up. Shes terrified, and they all were terrified, including the liberal judges, okay . The only difference that i can see between what the liberal judges said and what the majority says was that they probably would have restricted into the president. If they do, that opinion would have been even worse because it would have looked like you just cherrypicked the president out of a pile to say that the presidency is somehow special. There were other insurrectionists. There were other insurrectionists. Look, the bottom line is they were never, ever going to rule against trump here, and not because it was donald trump, but because of the fear that this court with only a limited amount of Political Capital these days, and we would disagree on the reasons for that,